Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds Virtual Briefing

May 11, 2024

Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy, Communications: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us for our virtual media briefing for Mayor Adams' day two trip to Rome, Italy. Just like yesterday, if you have a question, please utilize the raise hand feature after the mayor delivers some remarks. We'll take some questions. Again, if you have a question, please utilize the raise hand feature. With that, we'll kick it over to Mayor Adams. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much, Fabien. Again, before we begin, I just really want to thank the entire team here on the ground. His Holiness Pope Francis and the Cardinals and the entire team, Cardinal Gambetti has been just amazing with their hospitality to everyone that's involved in this entire experience of bringing together leaders from across the globe to talk about our fraternity of being human beings. 

As someone who's deeply connected to my own faith and as the mayor of a city with millions of Catholics, it was a sacred moment for me just to have an opportunity to hear from Pope Francis as he leads the world on the most important issues of our time, from the global refugee crisis to climate change, to the journey towards peace. He shows us how to meet these challenges with compassion, most importantly, with love. He shows how faith can bring us closer together. No matter what God we believe in, what we look like or where we live, it's important for us to know that we can come through these tough times together. 

I want to also thank the mayor of Rome, Mayor Gualtieri. We spent a lot of time together these last two days and he continues to just show that Roman hospitality. We attended the Rome Cures Rome program, which is Take Back Roma. It was just an exciting adventure, something that I would like to attempt to duplicate in our city. It's about coming together, cleaning up, beautifying the city and just expanding to more than that over the years. When you saw the level of volunteers, it's almost like New York Cares in our city with specific projects in communities on the ground and understanding how if we come together, we can solve some of the small problems that lead to bigger problems later. I was really moved to see how many people from the community joined and how much excitement they brought. 

This afternoon, I delivered remarks at the public session portion of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity. I discussed the important role that cities play in addressing global changes. It was extremely encouraging to hear from mayors across Italy, as well as young mayors who have a fraternity among themselves as they deal with these real pressing problems that we're facing in cities across the globe. I discussed the important role that cities play in addressing these challenges. And mayors say all the time, it is a fraternity that many of us understand the same issues from housing to public safety, to economic recovery, to educating children and making sure our cities are employable and our citizens are employable. I joined with the other speakers. It was a productive discussion. 

Later this evening, I will go to St. Peter's Basilica to attend the closing event of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity. Today, this trip is something that was extremely dear to me. It's a day I'm not going to forget. I want to thank all those involved. I open now for some questions if you have any. 

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, mayor. Again, if you have a question, please utilize the raise hand feature. To ask a question, please utilize the raise hand feature. We'll give the queue a second to populate. 

Okay, our first question is from Emily Ngo from Politico. Emily, you can unmute your line. 

Question: I would love to hear more about Pope Francis, his aura, anything that surprised you, what it was like to be in his presence, that sort of thing, please.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. I think all of us, Catholics or not practicing Catholics, with all the Popes, millions of people come out to greet them whenever they visit a city. Clearly there's something special about Pope Francis, just down to his interactions with you. It was clear how attentive he was. Several people interacted with him, but I found it an authentic attentiveness that he displayed to hear. 

Clearly being a Pope, you're not going to solve every problem that is brought in front of you. It starts with actually hearing people and listening to people. That's what I saw, not only when he communicated with me, but when he communicated with others, I watched closely and he was extremely attentive. I know that meant a lot to all of us who were in the room. 

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, mayor. Our next question is from Craig McCarthy from the New York Post. Craig, you can unmute your line. 

Question: …Spoke with the Pope about what his reaction was and what he said back to you. 

Mayor Adams:  I spoke with him about the conflicts that we're seeing globally playing out. I asked for his prayers dealing with the conflict throughout the entire globe in parts of Africa, what we're seeing playing out in Haiti, what we're seeing playing out in the Middle East. I talked about the program and initiative that is in place with the owner of the Patriots, what he's doing around ending antisemitism, I think is so important. Mr. Kraft has really focused on this and just dealing with some of the fears that people are feeling. He responded affirmatively and said, Eric, please pray for me as well. That just shows the humanity inside him as a person.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, mayor. Again, if you have a question, please utilize the raise hand feature. Our next question is from Mona Davids from Little Africa News. Mona, you can unmute your line. Mona, you can try unmuting your line. Okay, we'll come back to Mona. Our next question is from Katie Honan from The City. Katie, you can unmute your line.

Question: I wanted to ask you, you're a self-described man of faith and communicating with God in your own way. How do you prepare for meeting with such an international faith leader, deciding with all the problems and all the concerns of New Yorkers in such a large city? If you want to just walk us through a little bit of how you prepare for meeting with the Pope. When you meet with him, you don't have unlimited time. I just was curious, your thought process and what to discuss with him and what message you want to get across to him. 

Mayor Adams: I think that's a great question because I start my day all the time with prayer and meditation. As I knew this day was coming, there was a level of not only excitement to see a figure that represents really probably the heart and soul when we think about religious leaders of his magnitude. And it was, that sort of, I wouldn't say anxiety, but uncertainty was really removed from the time he walked in the room. 

I think that some people have a level of aura and energy and the ability to just calm people in a different situations. I think that's what he possessed. In my prayers, I thank God for having the opportunity this morning. I pray to have the opportunity and to be able to really convey to him how it was concerning me that we're seeing so much disruption, so much violence, and so much of a need for people to start healing. I hope that came through when I spoke with him. 

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, Mayor. We'll try to go back to Mona Davids from Little Africa News. Mona, you can unmute your line. 

Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. I was looking at some of the photographs from your visit, and I saw a photograph of you and Graça Machel there in Rome, and I was just curious if you've had an opportunity to speak with other leaders to talk about the migration crisis, and if you had any conversations with her or any other African leaders about concerns and issues going on the continent as well.

Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Yes, I did have several conversations, and there's a real concern because as you know. there's a large movement that's taking place in West Africa. I had the conversation to speak with one of my heroes, Nelson Mandela's wife, and she talked about the shifting movement in South Africa as well. Many people are moving throughout the continent of Africa because of just the instability in some countries with wars, as well as dealing with drought and famine, and how they have to deal with the increase in a very humane way. We talked about some of the things that we're doing here in New York City, I should say, and how we want to also show that same level of humanity, humanitarian response with the dignity that people deserve.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, Mayor. Again, if you have a question, please utilize the raise hand feature. Our next question is from Jeff Mays from the New York Times. Jeff, you can unmute your line.

Question: The Pope gave a really strong anti-war message when you were there today, and I'm wondering if you've thought about that at all with some of the criticism you faced back in New York City regarding the Israeli and conflict in Gaza. There's been some criticism that you focus more on what's happened to Israelis versus what's happening to Palestinians, and so I'm wondering if you've seen any conflict there, especially with the really strong anti-war message that the Pope gave today. 

Secondly, I wanted to find out what are you hoping to see tomorrow when you go look at some of the migrant sites. Do you have anything you want to learn or anything you're looking to pull out of that?

Mayor Adams: Great question. Number one, you can't be the mayor of a city in general, but specifically the mayor of New York City and don't get criticism. That is part of the job. You're going to be criticized, and the most vocal is not always the majority. As I move throughout the city, I'm constantly told, thank you for my stance that I'm taking on Haiti, my stance that I'm taking in Yemen, which the war is taking place right now, my stance that I'm taking with Palestine and Israel. We want to end the war there. The best way to end the war is to dismantle Hamas, bring the hostages home so we can stop any form of death of any innocent people. 

I'm consistent when I talk about the wars that are taking place in Africa and taking place in Ukraine. I stood on the steps of City Hall with my Ukrainian new arrivals. And so there's a level of consistency. It's unfortunate that there is one war going on right now. Because I'm consistent, I'm comfortable in how I've taken a strong stance that children and innocent people should not die globally. I'm not the type of person that is inconsistent in that message. I've been talking this message for many years, and I'm going to continue to say innocent people should not die. That's what we're seeing in far too many places on the globe. New Yorkers have reached out to me of all different faiths, and they have thanked me for being able to have a consistent voice to fight against Islamophobia, antisemitism, anti-Sikhism, and all these other attacks that we're seeing on innocent people. 

What I'm hoping to see at the migrant and asylum seeker location that we're going to visit here is just best practices. No one has this issue 100 percent right. I want to learn what the federal government is doing here. I want to learn if there's some practices that we can incorporate in what we're doing. Then we want to share what we are doing. Because when you are able to handle 194,000 people who are unable to work and they are in need of your complete care without one child or family sleeping on the street, that is something we should share with others. National leaders came to the city two weeks ago and commended us for what we were doing and stated that it should be duplicated throughout the entire country. I want to share that here as well.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Great. Thank you, mayor. Those are all the hands we have raised for today. We'll do this again tomorrow evening, Rome time, in the middle of the day, New York time. Thank you all for joining us and we'll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you. 

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